China Wife (17 page)

Heng Sun asked his question as he helped to load this new captive into the 4x4 alongside Alice. The muted squeals of recognition and Alice's excited announcement told Julie that the new young woman was Janice Liang, one of the four girls kidnapped from Canada.

‘So that's what this is all about!'

As she nursed her aching head, Julie began to put things
together. Janice had obviously been held somewhere on the other side of the lake and it was now time for Kim to move both of the women on, but where to now? Was it to another safe house or was it to their final destination.

With the aid of the steersman and a can of fuel from the inflatable, the dead Chinese thug was loaded into the 4x4 that Julie had hired and it was set on fire.

‘Give them something to think about,' Heng Sun said with a grin.

Julie assumed that he was referring to the police. It gave her something to think about as well. Taking off in a vehicle that had no tracker device was something that she hadn't envisaged, although she didn't see this as a deliberate ploy, just an act of convenience. And taking off to God knows where at that. Heng Sun was clearly a much more intellectually resourceful man than Kim. It had never before occurred to her that joining up with Mr Kim and his rather basic approach to problems was something of a benefit against the alternatives.

This, of course, wasn't something that was exercising Mr Kim's rather ponderous thought processes, which were more concerned with how the rival gang had known about the pickup and where it was. He had no idea and a very vexed interview with Mr Xu seemed to be in the offing. Heng Sun had his suspicions, which involved Janice Liang, but he was equally unable to answer the question of how. That Janice was anything but what she appeared to be wasn't a thought that had crossed Julie's mind at this point. But the inconsistencies in her behaviour were something that would slowly eat away at her subconscious.

European Times
UK Edition – Monday, 16 August 2010
ARREST OF CHINESE GANG MEMBERS INVOLVED IN ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

In a series of coordinated raids, Lincolnshire, Greater Manchester and West Midlands Police arrested a number of Chinese men yesterday. In separate raids, two gangmasters of Chinese origin were also arrested.

The Chinese men are accused of running a labour importation cartel in breach of the Immigration Regulations masked by the legitimate recruitment and management of seasonal agricultural labour. Links with Chinese gangmasters have been established that also reveal regular abuse of the Gangmasters Certification Regulations.

The UK Human Trafficking Centre provided intelligence gathered from a number of unattributed sources.

Links with organised crime in mainland China involving the gangmasters are being investigated. The Chinese Embassy in London has said that it will cooperate with the police enquiries in every way that it can.

An Embassy spokeswoman said: ‘The Chinese Government is aware of a growing expansion of Chinese gangs into people trafficking, drugs and prostitution and with the increasing conflict with criminal gangs from Eastern Europe in both Europe and the Americas. The People's Republic condemns these activities absolutely.'

The Chinese men, who have not been named nor their number confirmed, are being held in custody in various police stations in the respective areas.

The police have declined to confirm or deny speculation that the Chinese gangs whose members were arrested were also involved in the trafficking of women for the sex trade. At a recent conference of police officers, Security Service officials and civil servants from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the increasing role of mainland Chinese gangs in the UK and
Europe in a number of apparently new and very specific areas of women trafficking were discussed. The role of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in these discussions is assumed to mean that action in cooperation with other countries is on the agenda. The FCO media spokeswoman, when contacted, indicated that no press conference would be called at the end of the discussions. None of the women's action groups contacted by the
Times
was prepared to speculate on what these new specific areas of trafficking might be.

Police in the three forces making the arrests of the Chinese men were confident that they were successfully combating the illegal trafficking of labour but acknowledged that trafficking women into the sex trade was much more difficult to prevent. Again, they were silent on the new areas of women trafficking under discussion.

27

Susie Peveral had been to Canberra before. She had spent six months at the British High Commission soon after she joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She had enjoyed her stay and liked Canberra; it was one of those places that it was hard not to like. She was looking forward to spending time with David Hutchinson there after he had completed some preliminary work he had to do in Melbourne.

Susie, being a relatively tidy-minded and organised person, had formed a great liking for the administrative area of the city and continued to be fascinated by the new Parliament which she recognised as one of the iconic buildings of the world. Settling herself into a double room in a motel in the Forrest area, she took time on the Sunday of her arrival to orient herself before her first appointment of the Monday morning.

The walk to the British High Commission took her longer than she had expected; one thing that had changed since she was last there was the increase in the quantity and speed of the traffic. But the bustle of Canberra was more relaxed, more easy-going, than that of London, or even of Melbourne.

‘Susie. Welcome to Canberra.'

She'd had met Tristram Booth in Brazil; they were much of an age. Like Susie, he was another Foreign Office high-flyer. He was definitely a welcome face for her in Australia. He was immensely tall but neat and economic of movement, and Susie had been attracted to him at their first meeting. He had a friendly face that was very hard to describe but that was easy
to read among friends and impossible among the diplomatic milieu in which he and Susie lived.

‘Tristram.'

She had also met his wife and his then-small twin daughters in Brazil, so her interest was very much as a colleague. And now with David occupying her mind as well as her bed, Tristram's diplomatic capabilities were more what she was interested in.

Well briefed on the labour and women trafficking activities that were the basis of Susie's current interest, he dispensed coffee and biscuits while she admired the view of Lake Burley Griffin and they awaited the arrival of a colleague. A colleague who, Susie was quick to note, was neither named nor otherwise identified.

When Alan arrived, she might have easily seen why Julie Kershawe had likened him to a Greek god. His clean-cut good looks were striking but had a pallidness about them that Susie found less attractive than David's rugged, suntanned and expressive face. Alan, as Julie had also noted, was the perfect spy – competent, self-effacing and forgettable.

‘I have just spoken to your associate.' Alan, as usual, didn't waste words on small talk. ‘I have to say there's been some reluctance to talk to an investigative journalist back in the office, and the Federal and Victorian Police have asked for certain guarantees, as prosecutions could be pending related to what they are investigating.'

Susie wasn't surprised.

Tristram Booth gave her a reassuring smile. He seriously doubted whether the first Hutchinson report would ever get into the public domain, let alone one on a subject that might cast light on the inner workings of the Chinese political system. Susie's recent conversations with her Permanent Secretary largely confirmed this. Burying his reports was the outcome that David was well aware was always going to be the most likely. A significant amount of what he wrote and
photographed ended up that way; but he still got paid!

‘The only loose ends that he seems to have are around the trafficking of educated Chinese women,' Alan continued. ‘That's the area where we definitely don't want to go public but where we can still be of some help.'

It was a careful understatement.

Neither of the diplomats was privy to the detail of the latest activities that Julie Kershawe/Li was involved in and the danger that she was exposed to. And Alan had been very careful and selective in what he had told David Hutchinson. He knew, however, that in present company he was going to have to say something more.

Again, it was Tristram Booth who responded to him.

‘Don't want to upset our neighbours,' he said, gesturing over his shoulder at the adjacent Embassy of the People's Republic.

In fact, the Chinese were anything but upset. David Hutchinson represented an opportunity to the tortuous official Chinese mind. The suggestion to formalise his role so that he could operate in China by commissioning him to further investigate and report on some of the outstanding aspects of what he had been following up in the UK and Australia was instigated by the Chinese themselves, or at least by the Chinese Embassy in Canberra. The proposal was well received by the faceless Beijing bureaucrats. There was considerable sensitivity to the importation of educated and professional women into the Chinese business and political world. Although it was minute in scale, some of the top people in Beijing hierarchy were thought to have a connection to it. A bit of transparency, albeit maybe limited, provided by a reputable outsider was obviously desirable in the circumstances.

It was an outcome that would utterly amaze the Foreign Office China specialists when the arrangement with David and Susie eventually became known.

Both Susie and Alan knew that there was active cooperation with the Chinese on a range of people trafficking issues. They
certainly didn't want to disturb the partnership either. But they had concerns about the reliability of certain individuals among the Chinese authorities, political and official, but they also knew that this was too complex a topic for the British or Australians to get drawn into at the present time.

‘Hutchinson has gone to Bendigo in Victoria to talk to the Victorian Police about a young Chinese woman.'

The way that Alan said ‘young Chinese woman' immediately focused Susie's attention.

‘Julie Kershawe – late of the UK Border Agency?'

Susie hadn't expected Tristram to be so fully informed about Julie.

‘I believe that she is also being sought by the Victoria Police,' he added.

Perhaps
, thought Susie,
he isn't so well informed as he is making out.

Julie's cover story had been circulated to the areas of the bureaucracies of the UK and Australia that might need to know. The High Commission's inclusion was routine.

‘I believe Hutchinson knows where she is, or rather where she was.'

Alan gave Susie a rather sour look that suggested that she shouldn't pursue the topic.

‘As I understand it, after going to Bendigo, Hutchinson is coming here before he heads off again to Brisbane.'

Again, Alan didn't make any attempt to explain the purpose of these movements.

Tristram Booth's part in the conversation that ensued as Alan updated Susie on what they knew of the movements of Julie Kershawe, now calling herself Julie Li, and the prime target of their interest, Kim Lee Sung or Joe Kim, was minimal. His was a listening brief. The description of the events at Lake Mulwala took some time to discuss; Alan was both irritated and concerned by the fact that the car fitted with the tracking device had been destroyed and, as a consequence, Julie and
Kim and the kidnapped girls had effectively gone off the radar.

‘Julie is pretty resourceful. The Federal Police have briefed both their New South Wales and Queensland colleagues, since the only way they can really go is north.'

Neither Alan nor Susie voiced their common thought that, while they needed to know where the fugitives were, they needed them to be free to make their way to their final destination, wherever that was.

Susie was quick to note that the labour trafficking issues were no longer a topic of interest to either Alan or Tristram Booth any more than they were to her. The fate of a small number of educated Chinese women, however, was assuming far greater importance. The unspoken but accurate assumption within the Australian Security Services that it was the freedom of movement of the women that was key would have accorded with the thoughts beginning to form in Susie's mind.

The last twist in the conversation came from Tristram Booth.

‘I've been asked to introduce Susie to my opposite number at the Chinese Embassy. Or rather to take a stroll on the Parliament building roof garden. Knowing him, we might even get treated to coffee!'

The roof of the Parliament building proved to be a simple area of lawn with very little privacy or shade. But the view over Canberra was spectacular and one of the best urban vistas that Susie had ever seen.

The actual building was cleverly built into the hill so that the roof garden seemed almost to form a natural part of the landscape.

‘So the public can look down on the politicians rather than the politicians look down on the public; or some such story.'

It was a piece of democratic subtlety that Tristram, as he made the comment, realised would perhaps have been lost on their visitor.

Mr Luo, who for reasons that were never explained liked to be called Julius even if it wasn't his given name, was the First Secretary at the Chinese People's Republic Embassy, which stood with the British and other Commonwealth high commissions on Commonwealth Avenue. A student of British colonial history. Mr Luo had spent some of his early career in Hong Kong working for the administration-in-waiting and then in the Chief Secretary's office. Although very much the voice of Beijing, he was known for his grasp of the British administrative system and for his understanding of what the Chinese would have regarded as the oddities of the British character.

‘Julius never refers to us as the English, always the British; I even heard him correct some pompous US Senator on the point. He'd be just as at home in Oxford as here.'

Tristram's briefing to Susie as they sat in the winter sun waiting for Mr Luo to arrive suggested anything but that of the traditional background of a diplomat. He clearly liked his Chinese colleague. Susie pulled her long coat over her skirt, leaving only a part of her legs on show. Something in Booth's description made her instinctively move to modesty.

Mr Luo arrived on time. Susie immediately felt like Tristram that she would like him. The Chinese diplomat nodded to acknowledge the presence of his two counterparts. Then, as Susie watched in some surprise, he walked to the edge of the lawn facing down the hill overlooking Canberra's main shopping and residential areas and, aligning himself with the building, paused and bowed to the distant War Memorial.

It was clearly something that he always did.

‘Julius – Susie Peveral, from London.'

Mr Luo had already been briefed so he knew who Susie was. His bow this time was altogether more personal.

‘Miss Peveral' – Julius Luo was never going to call her Susie – ‘I understand that you are responsible for the high level of cooperation that is going on over this nasty business of people trafficking.'

Susie nodded her agreement.

‘The cooperation is about to move into a more complicated phase. We believe that your government and those of Canada, the United States and the European Union are about to introduce much clearer and much tougher regulations on the legitimate movements and resettlement of labour. We believe that the trafficking of working people for profit has to be stopped but not the opportunities for people to move around the world to improve their own economic conditions.'

It was only as the diplomat paused to draw breath that Susie recognised the quality of his English and the absence of the American accent so common among Chinese officials when they spoke English. His last sentiment however, rather surprised her; it didn't quite fit with the often xenophobic pronouncements of his government.

‘This problem we can set aside,' Luo continued. ‘And the trafficking of women for the sex trade, this is not something that we recognise as a problem. Very few Chinese women are involved.'

The quick pulling together of his eyebrows by Tristram Booth froze Susie's rejoinder. Whatever she knew to the contrary, this was an area that they weren't going to discuss. The rather old-fashioned Chinese sensibilities had to be respected.

‘The trafficking of educated and what you would call middle-class young women into China, however, is something different.'

There was heavy emphasis on ‘into China'.

More work with Tristram's eyebrows again forestalled any comment from Susie. The Chinese Government were very wary of people from the West coming into their country and bringing in views that would not be acceptable to the Communist rulers. Susie knew this, but it seemed rather simplistic reasoning as a motivation for trying to stop the traffic.

‘We are aware that as many as nine women may have
already arrived in China. One has been repatriated to Argentina after being arrested in Hong Kong and our Australian colleagues tell us that they have identified four more, one of whom has been arrested. The whereabouts of the other eight is being investigated.'

This Susie already knew, but with the ever present risk of Tristram's frown she said nothing.

‘Actually,' Booth said, ‘six more. Two more young Chinese women have been intercepted in Queensland.'

Neither Susie nor Mr Luo was aware of this.

The trafficking of educated young women had unravelled further that very morning. Booth had no details, just the basic information and a casualty report.

Wreckage and the body of a middle-aged man had been sighted offshore a few kilometres north of Cairns, in an area that although popular with tourists was largely uninhabited in the winter. The Queensland Police had immediately recognised the wreckage as part of a large ocean-going cruiser. A search for the rest of the vessel and its crew had started immediately. Since there had been at least two violent storms in the area within the last week, the emergency services went into overdrive.

The breakthrough had been as unexpected as it had been welcome.

It was the excited barking of an ageing Labrador being walked along the beach five kilometres north of Cairns, again in an area abandoned for the winter, that alerted the owner. Snakes, even crocodiles, weren't unknown, especially after the sort of rainfall that they had just had. The dog owner was a retired rancher. The noise the dog was making told him that he had indeed encountered a snake. If it had been a crocodile, the animal would have retreated.